BRODBECK: Time to euthanize photo radar cash cow

Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason announced Thursday that municipalities will have to document where they use photo radar, what rationale was used for site selection, and most importantly, prove – with data – that the cameras are reducing collisions and injuries.Brian Donogh / Brian Donogh/Winnipeg Sun

The Alberta government issued new photo radar rules last week for municipalities requiring towns and cities to prove the technology is reducing collisions and injuries and is not simply a “cash cow” for city coffers.

It’s time for the Manitoba government to do the same.

Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason announced Thursday that municipalities will have to document where they use photo radar, what rationale was used for site selection, and most importantly, prove – with data – that the cameras are reducing collisions and injuries.

“I think in some cases photo radar in the province of Alberta has been a cash cow,” Mason said during a news conference in Edmonton. “It’s my intention that we are going to humanely put the cash cow down.”

Sound familiar?

The city of Winnipeg has been using photo radar as a cash cow for over 15 years, raking in millions annually for the city treasury while providing no data whatsoever on whether it’s reducing collisions or injuries. The city has released crash statistics for intersection safety cameras over the years, although even those figures have been unreliable. The data has been incomplete and the methodology used to collect it has changed several times since the beginning of the program.

No crash data has ever been collected for mobile photo radar, at least none the city has made public. Even a 2009 Traffic Injury Research Foundation report on the effectiveness of photo enforcement in Winnipeg commissioned by the city did not include collision and injury data for photo radar.

In other words, the city has no idea whether photo radar has had any impact on road safety because it has no evidence upon which to draw conclusions.

What they do have, though, is plenty of information on how much money it’s making. In 2017 alone, photo enforcement generated $10.8 million in net revenues for the city of Winnipeg. That includes photo radar and intersection safety cameras.

The city doubled the number of photo radar vehicles in 2006 from five to 10, not because it had any data showing how they were improving road safety. They doubled the number to increase revenues, which has been the unstated goal from the very beginning.

Apparently they’ve had similar experiences in Alberta.

“I think that photo radar is being used to generate revenue for municipalities and for the provincial government to a greater degree than it should be and it is not being optimized to improve safety outcomes on our highways and on our roads,” said Mason.

Alberta has also been hampered by a lack of reliable data to demonstrate whether the program is making roads safer, just like Winnipeg.

“It’s been a struggle to get uniform data that allows us to make good decisions,” said Mason.

As a result, they’re doing a thorough review of photo radar and they’re demanding quality data and evidence-based decision making from municipalities that use photo enforcement. Manitoba should do the same.

The reality is, the city of Winnipeg has been violating the terms of use for photo enforcement – which is mandated through provincial legislation – from the very beginning. And the province has never called them on it. Under the December 2002 “conditions of use” policy, municipalities that use photo enforcement must, among other things, produce annual statistics that include “an analysis of the effect of the photo enforcement on traffic safety in the municipality, including annual statistics and year to year variances in: 1) traffic collisions 2) traffic injuries; and 3) collision severity.”

The city of Winnipeg has never produced such data for photo radar.

It’s time it did. And it’s time for the province to start forcing the city to prove it’s using photo radar for safety reasons, not as a cash cow.

If the city can’t do that, or refuses to, Manitoba should also humanely put the photo radar cash cow down, just like they’re doing in Alberta.

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